


No Good Answer

by SilverRowan_Ivy630951



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes After Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes’s Post-Winter Soldier Hydra Revenge World Tour, Captain America Steve Rogers, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Outsider, POV Steve Rogers, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Team as Family, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, read the notes, tw in the notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:00:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29510751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverRowan_Ivy630951/pseuds/SilverRowan_Ivy630951
Summary: “The answer is that there is no good answer. So as parents as doctors as judges and as a society we fumble through and make decisions that allow us to sleep at night because morals are more important than ethics and love is more important than law.” - Jodi Picoulthttps://allauthor.com/quotes/211392/The world watches as Captain America reacts to the deaths of numerous people he couldn’t save.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Avengers Team
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	No Good Answer

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning. This hurts. I cried. TW for needless killing, extensive talk of death and murder, discussing blame and regret. Take care of yourselves. This one might not be for you.

All Steve could think as he stood in the middle of the large stadium was that they’d failed. They’d failed and now so many people were dead.

The terrorist and given them a choice. It had been a terrible choice with no right answer, no way out. No matter what they’d picked, so many people would’ve died. Choose this group or that. Save this group or that. Try to save both and they all died.

If they’d waited, tried to stall, the terrorist pushed the button and everyone died. If they’d managed to kill her, the trigger was automatically activated and everyone died.

There had been no way out. No loopholes, no tricks to win, no strategies that could work. SHIELD, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and numerous other agencies and analysts had all worked feverishly to try to find a way to save them.

But, in the end, they’d failed.

And, in the end, it had been Steve who’d had to make the choice. It was Steve who had to live with knowing he pulled the trigger.

*****

The news footage after the incident—after the mass murder—had gone viral around the globe.

Mere minutes after everyone had been killed, while authorities were still hauling away the struggling terrorist and numerous bomb squads flown in from all over the country were attempting to disable the explosives on the survivors, a reporting crew had snuck in.

Their cameras were already rolling, airing on live television, picked up by news station after news station. They immediately searched for Captain America. They found him, kneeling alone amid the chaos, devastation clear as he bowed his head and covered his face with his hands.

Tony Stark moved quickly to intercept the camera crew, demanding to know how they got in, telling them that it wasn’t safe and that they needed to leave. The reporters boldly returned with demands of a report for the watching world.

In the background, Captain America sank to sitting on his feet. He repeatedly wiped tears from his eyes and his breath visibly shuddered in and out of his chest.

When Mr. Stark wouldn’t answer their questions, only insisted that they leave for their own safety, they tried to get around him to interview the Captain, uncaring of anything but the story.

Hawkeye dropped down from somewhere above, causing one of them to squeak in surprise. Black Widow suddenly appeared out of nowhere by his side. The three stood, firm, a wall blocking the path to their Captain.

As the reporter tried, once again, to demand answers, the camera stayed focused on Captain America. Everyone could see the grief on the three Avengers’ faces, the faint tear tracks marked through the dirt there, but the cameraman ignored them and zoomed in on the Captain. The world watched as he wiped his eyes one final time, his face rippling with something that everyone from teens to great-grandparents would later argue was intense anguish, even as the Avengers stayed silent on the matter.

Not looking in the direction of the camera, either not noticing it or just not caring, Captain America stood suddenly and put on an inhuman burst of speed. He leapt for the wall in front of the bleachers, ricocheted from there to an even taller wall. Using his built up momentum, he then made an absolutely mind-boggling jump towards the middle of the stadium.

The world collectively held its breath as everyone waited to see if he would fall.

He didn’t.

He grabbed onto the very base of the supporting structure that held the big screen TVs used during the stadium games. Flipping himself up, he made his way into the middle of it. He was only just barely visible between screens.

Then the world watched as he bowed his head again, covered his face, and cried.

*****

Bucky knew he had no right to be there. He knew he probably wouldn’t be allowed up, not after everything he did. But he had to try. He couldn’t _not_ try. Everything in him screamed out at the thought of being apart.

It was no longer about him. It was no longer about his pain or what he’d done or anything else. It was no longer about him needing time to stitch his brains back together.

Now it was about Steve.

He didn’t even know what he’d say when he reached the receptionist’s desk. What _could_ he say? ‘Hello, I’m an international murderer puppet and wanted fugitive; may I please see Captain America?’

He hugged the wall as he made his way around the crowd.

There were a lot of people there. It was unexpected. But it probably shouldn’t have been. Not with the Avengers being the biggest story currently airing around the planet.

He thought that the crowd actually worked in his favor since he wasn’t immediately surrounded by security wanting to arrest the Winter Soldier before he went murdery and tried to attack people in the Tower or Captain America and the Avengers.

That thought was dashed, however, when, the moment he passed, the elevator door dinged so quietly only a supersoldier would’ve heard. Then it swished open to reveal an empty elevator car. He looked around, unsure if it was meant for him or not, unsure if it was a trap.

But he needed to get to Steve. He took a chance.

Silently praying that he wasn’t traveling to meet a bullet in the brain, he shifted nervously.

It had been more than a year since he’d run from Steve. He’d pretty much wiped HYDRA off the map in that time. He’d also put his mind back together. He didn’t remember everything but he thought he had most of it.

He fiddled with his backpack strap.

Finally, _finally_ , the door opened. There was no firing squad on the other side. There was no Iron Man ready to kill—though he would’ve understood. There was no Black Widow watching him warily. There was no Falcon giving him the stink eye because Bucky had thrown him off a Helicarrier after he’d ripped off his wing.

Slowly he stepped out.

He was in a cozy, dim room with large furniture separating the living room from a kitchen. A hallway lead away into darkness where Bucky assumed was a bedroom and a bathroom.

The only sound in the dim space was a muffled sniffle. Following his ears, he walked the half a dozen steps to the living and rounded the couch.

And froze when he found himself being eyeballed by every Avenger but Steve.

Steve was lying curled up on a stack of blankets in the middle of a pile of his teammates. Puppy pile, his brain supplied. It was cute, even as it was nerve-wracking with everyone deciding whether to attack him or not.

It took a moment to get past the intense stares to see that Steve was crying. It hurt, seeing him like that. It hurt now almost more than seeing it on TV had. Because this was up close and personal. Steve wasn’t one to cry easily, he knew. He never had been. And he’d never cried for himself. The only times Bucky remembered him crying was when it was for another.

He didn’t know if something showed on his face or if the Avengers just decided to let him in. But two of them moved back to make room. Surprisingly it was Stark and Romanov.

Wilson stayed close, a fact that had a bit of jealousy flaring, but he pushed it down. Dropping his backpack beside the couch and nudging off his shoes, he walked into the middle of the Avengers.

Steve looked up at the noise. His face crumpled when he saw Bucky. His silent crying shot up to painful sobs as Steve reached for him.

His eyes filling, Bucky sat and took him into his arms.

“I killed them, Buck. I’m the reason all those people are dead. I chose for them to die.” Then he couldn’t talk anymore, the sounds his sobs filling the room.

Bucky just let him cry. What could he say, really? That everything was alright? It wasn’t. That it wasn’t his fault? Steve felt like it was.

When he began to calm down, Bucky shifted. “Look at me? Please?”

It took a few minutes but, eventually he did. His eyes, when he met Bucky’s, said he knew exactly what he was going to say. He thought Bucky would gloss over it all, say that Steve had had no choice. Bucky was many things. But he wasn’t a hypocrite.

“I think I can safely say that every single person in this room right now…” Steve’s eyes turned guarded. “…knows exactly how you feel.”

Steve sucked in a shocked breath.

“You don’t think Romanov regrets people she’s killed? You don’t think Barton regrets? Or Banner or Wilson? What about Tony Stark? Do you think he doesn’t regret the people his weapons have killed? Or how about a thousand year old alien prince of a warrior race?” He let that sink in for a few moments. “You don’t think that I regret each and every person these hands have killed? I’ve killed Nazis.” His voice lowered, then, with every word that passed his lips. “I’ve killed strangers. I’ve killed children. I’ve killed friends.” The last was a whisper. “And I almost killed you.”

Tears slipped slowly down Bucky’s face unheeded as he looked deep into Steve’s eyes. He cupped Steve’s face and wiped away the dampness he found there. “Good guy or bad, my choice or not. I will regret each life I took until long after the day I die. But you know what, Steve? That regret you feel? It means that your heart is still in there. It means that, even after everything, you’re still good.

“Life is a series of choices. Sometimes they’re hard. Sometimes there’s nothing we can do after _but_ feel the pain of that regret. But that’s a choice we all make each and every day.”

He fell silent, having nothing left to say. He hoped it was enough. He wrapped Steve back up in his arms when his friend buried his face in Bucky’s neck.

There was a quiet sniffle and Bucky looked over at Wilson. He watched as the man wiped his eyes. “There was this mission. Back in ’09. Riley and I were sent somewhere. It was top secret. Need to know only. We didn’t even know what we were retrieving beyond ‘a lockbox with important Intel.’ We—” his voice broke and he sniffed again. “We snuck in and nobody knew we were there.

“On our way out, we saw a father being interrogated. They thought he’d stolen the box. Be-before we could decide whether to make ourselves known, they shot his baby, then his toddler and his five year old. They didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t do it.” Another sniff. “After they let him cry for his children, they shot his wife and told him to run. He didn’t even make it twenty feet.”

Romanov reached out to hold his hand and Barton slipped is arm over his shoulder.

“I got drunk once,” Stark said softly, not looking at anyone, “and had Jarvis calculate how many innocent people my weapons have killed, both because of me and because of Obie. I don’t remember much about that night. But I remember the number. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about it at least once.”

Thor moved closer and wrapped his arm around Stark. Surprisingly, Stark let him.

Romanov leaned into Wilson’s side. She placed her hand gently on Steve’s knee. “I’ve killed so many people. For the Red Room, freelancing, and for Shieldra. I’ll never know how many of them deserved it or who was just…in the way.”

“I was an assassin before I worked for SHIELD,” Barton said softly. “I worked for anyone who was willing to pay for it. I’ll always regret that.”

“I’ve crashed buildings down on innocent people as the Hulk.” Barton pulled Banner against his other side, cuddling him the same as Wilson. “I…wrecked Harlem.”

“Even I have regrets in my fifteen hundred years,” Thor said. “In my youth, I courted war. I was so…eager…that I almost destroyed an entire race. And when my father stopped me, I was angry.”

Bucky looked around at everyone. Wilson was still silently crying. Most, though, were just sad. “You see, Stevie?” he said. “Everyone has regrets. It’s how we go on that matters.”

*****

Hours later, after the Avengers had left them alone, Bucky carried Steve to bed to try and sleep. He eventually shifted to move and Steve’s arms clamped tight around him. Either Bucky had just woken him or he hadn’t been asleep.

“I’m not leaving, sweetheart. Just need to use the bathroom.” He carded his fingers through Steve’s hair a few times before he got up and hurried out. “Ain’t gettin’ rid of me now, dollface,” he called over his shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of this is something that’s been in the back of my mind for a long time. I don’t know where it came from. A part of me feels like there might’ve been a fic I read where a similar situation happened to Steve? But I have no idea if that’s true (if it is it’s been a _very_ long time since I read it) or if I dreamed it up on my own.


End file.
